Living On Curry Road: First Good Story From The Cope Group, David Cope That Is

Welcome to the Adventures of Living On Curry Road

Rye, Arkansas is located eleven miles north of Warren, AR, fifteen miles west of Monticello, AR and approximately thirty miles south of Pine Bluff, AR. Rye has been the home of the Curry family for over five generations. This family has farmed this land producing cattle, chickens, timber. The area is beautiful and the family culture is equally impressive with its generations of family that continue to live by the standards that made America a great country.

Rye, AR and the Curry family are a story of strong American values and the building of personal character, the love of God and a lot of very hard dedicated work. Donald Curry and Kay Curry are the current owners of most of the original farm land originally developed by the generations of Curry family. Kay Curry is the daughter of Jimmy and Hazel Baker and married Donald over fifty years ago. Both have continued the legacy of the farm life on Curry Road. Donald and Kay have raised a family of two daughters and one son. Mark Curry currently operates a cattle operation as well as four chicken houses on his part of the property. Lisa Tooke, wife of Dennis Tooke of Lake Charles, La and Donna Curry, of Little Rock, AR plan to retire back to the farm land when thier retirement time comes.

Jane and I were asked to help in a restoration of the 104 year old house shown above. We are so blessed to be allowed to have input as well as provide a labor of love to help restore this house to its original beauty for Donald and Kay Curry

As Jane and I came into the property with our RV, we came down the gravel road leading to Curry Road. We came down this gravel road and had to stop and take a picture. We are including that picture with this overview so you too can see the beauty of this area.

It reminded us of the book “The Painted House” by John Grisham and we hope you will get the same response.

Jane, Carl and Charlie Pierce

Friday, April 29, 2011

First Good Story From The Cope Group, David Cope That Is

As you remember, David Cope and his sisters came by for a visit a short time back. They promised to share some stories about the old place and I've received the first one. Its a good one so, enjoy and keep'm coming.

Just for understanding, "Uncle G" was W G Curry the owner of the old Curry house we're remodeling. Donald and Kay Curry bought the old house from Royce Curry, WG's son and is responsible for the restoring of the old home. Uncle Coke's house was just up the way and you may recall seeing the old house as it is now. The first picture below shows David and his sisters with Donald Curry. I'm also including a picture of Uncle Coke's house. We'll be removing the bricks from the chimney to make our entrance walk and we'll take a few of the old boards and use them on the walls of the sun room.

Back about 1992 we had our last reunion at Uncle G’s. All the Curry’s came and we had a great time discussing all the “old times”. Uncle Coke’s house had pretty much fallen in by then but all the kids wanted to go look at it anyway. A bunch of them took off and went to “explore” the old house. My daughter Melissa (who was about 12 or 13) didn’t go on the first trip. When the kids got back telling about what they had seen Melissa decided she wanted to go and asked me to go with her. So, here we go again, all the kids and me, back to the old fallen-in house. It was the first time I had been to the house since it had collapsed. Now, it was well known that Aunt Lillian had lost both her legs below the knee to diabetes and had artificial legs. When we got to the house the back part of it was still partially standing and you could see jars on the stove and her creamer and butter separator on the table. We looked around and I saw many things I remembered as a child while visiting them. Someone asked what was that laying on the floor on the other side of the room. I replied “That’s Aunt Lillian’s leg” and the kids wanted to go look at it. After they were all satisfied that was indeed what they were looking at, they all ran back to Uncle G’s house telling everyone about how neat it was seeing Aunt Lillian’s leg. All the kids are grown now and some have children of their own but Melissa still remembers all about Aunt Lillian’s leg.

David